Back Roads to Far Towns - Basho : White Pine Press : 9781893996311 : 189399631X : 18 Nov 2004 : Basho (1644?1694) is the most famous Haiku poet of Japan. He made his living as a teacher and writer of Haiku and is celebrated for his many travels around Japan, which he recorded in travel journals. This translation of his most mature journal, Oku-No-Hosomichi, details the most arduous part of a nine-month journey with his friend and disciple, Sora, through the backlands north of the capital, west to the Japan Sea and back toward Kyoto. More than a record of the journey, Basho's journal is a poetic sequence that has become a center of the Japanese mind/heart. Ten illustrations by Hide Oshiro illuminate the text. Cid Corman was well-known as a poet, translator and editor of Origin, the ground-breaking poetry magazine.